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I got a sudden interest in St. Bartholomew Day massacre and I would like to do some research of the massacre itself, but also events that preceded and followed the massacre and I would like to get some (smattering) knowledge of the time period. I am not sure what I would like to learn, but various interesting facts such as what they ate, clothes they wore, their jobs, their everyday lives....
I am most interested with commoners and maybe small nobles. In Everyman.

What arose my interest was a thought, 'Were those men evil?'
Because I think they loved their wives (or girlfriends), children, parents, they probably helped their friends and some of them gave alms to the poor out of compassion... well, that is my speculation.

Attachments

A painting by Giorgio Vasari, commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII; I suppose it cannot be removed because it is a fresco, but it really ought to be covered over. That a modern Pope is not concerned about being photographed in front of it takes one's breath away! It is a celebration of religious terrorism, nothing more and nothing less.

A painting by Giorgio Vasari, commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII; I suppose it cannot be removed because it is a fresco, but it really ought to be covered over. That a modern Pope is not concerned about being photographed in front of it takes one's breath away! It is a celebration of religious terrorism, nothing more and nothing less.

AIrc, the Pope was originally misinformed that the Protestants had attempted to murder the French king; that they had been frustrated and the killings following were a fight. So, the Pope declared thanksgiving.
On being subsequently correctly informed that it was an unprovoked massacre, he-privately and reservedly-expressed disapproval.

"The Huguenot party having plotted regicide had to be punished, and its punishment seemed once more to put France in condition to combat the Turks; such was the twofold aspect under which Rome considered the massacre. Besides, the pope's joy did not last long. A rather involved account by Brantôme leads us to think that, becoming better informed, he grew angry at the news of such barbarity, and it is certain that when, in October, 1572, the Cardinal of Lorraine wished to present Maurevel, who had fired on Coligny on 22 August, Gregory XIII refused to receive him, saying: "He is an assassin." Doubtless by this time the vague despatches sent by Salviati during the weeks preceding the massacre had, in the light of events, become more comprehensible and rendered it clearer that the origin of these tragic events was the assault of 22 August; without ceasing to rejoice that Charles IX had eventually escaped the conspiracy then commonly asserted in France and abroad, Gregory XIII judged the criminal, Maurevel, according to his deserts. The condemnation by Pius V of the "intrigues" against Coligny and the refusal of Gregory XIII to receive Maurevel "the assassin" establish the unbending rectitude of the papacy, which, eager as it was for the re-establishment of religious unity, never admitted the pagan theories of a certain raison d'état according to which the end justified the means. As to the congratulations and the manifestations of joy which the news of the massacre elicited from Gregory XIII, they can only be fairly judged by assuming that the Holy See, like all Europe and indeed many Frenchmen, believed in the existence of a Huguenot conspiracy of whose overthrow the Court boasted and whose punishment an obsequious parliament had completed."

This is of course apologetics from a later age, and one needs to try to understand the actions and reactions of Gregory XIII in terms of the attitudes of hsi own age. Any disapproval that he may subsequently have expressed was so discreet as not have reached the outside world (I would need better evidence on this!). As for the very public celebartion of the massacre, it remained on the wall, where (as Lord Acton remarked more than 150 years ago), "for three centuries it has insulted every pontiff who entered the Sistine Chapel'.

Re the St Bartholemew massacre raking over stuff like this to gain some kind of moral traction for one's own modern prejudices is part and parcel of historical debate .
But all sides committed relgious based atrocities re Cromwell and his Cathloc massacres at Drogheda.
But both sides were up to their necks in this stuff so trying to use it to gain some moral superiority over modern adherants of a given religion is bullshit.
Even worse it is negative destructive and deadly bull -witness the streets of Belfast and Derry before the peace was established
Both sides of the sectarian divide in Ireland are as bad and good as each other.
The good, sensible ones on both sides of the Uster divide get on with living life in the 21st century. Those who want to keep Ulster in the dark ages keep going over the same old arguments ad nauseum.

Re the St Bartholemew massacre raking over stuff like this to gain some kind of moral traction for one's own modern prejudices is part and parcel of historical debate .
But all sides committed relgious based atrocities re Cromwell and his Cathloc massacres at Drogheda.
But both sides were up to their necks in this stuff so trying to use it to gain some moral superiority over modern adherants of a given religion is bullshit.
Even worse it is negative destructive and deadly bull -witness the streets of Belfast and Derry before the peace was established
Both sides of the sectarian divide in Ireland are as bad and good as each other.
The good, sensible ones on both sides of the Uster divide get on with living life in the 21st century. Those who want to keep Ulster in the dark ages keep going over the same old arguments ad nauseum.

Think you have to take into account that it is an ongoing thing. Nothing has been agreed and settled and there was in recent time 30 years of bloodshed. It's ok to be sitting afar off and pontificating about what should and should not be done.

The people who live in Ulster will have to sort it out.

You may be right about Cromwell but just to mention that his soldiers killed a thousand Protestants. So it wasn't all one-way.

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